5 talking points from Eurovision 2025

RTÉ News​

18-05-2025

After four hours of music, performances, entertainment and excitement, the winner of the 69th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 crowned its winner.
The nail-biting finale saw Austria's JJ taking home the trophy with 436 points being awarded to his song Wasted Love, while Israel's Yuval Raphael finished in second place with 357 points.
As 26 acts took to the stage, viewers saw everything from men dancing in towels to a woman soaring skyward on a giant microphone!
But what were the big talking points from this year's Eurovision?
1. The winner takes it all
Last night JJ from Austria reigned supreme at the 69th Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, the birthplace of the competition in 1956.
His extraordinary vocal skills in the song Wasted love saw him beat off competition from the 25 rival countries who performed on the St. Jakobshalle stage in Basel. The line up comprised of 20 qualifiers from the two semi-finals, the so-called 'Big Five' of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, along with last year's winners, Switzerland - who all automatically qualified for the final.
While Sweden had been strongly favoured all week, their quirky tune Bada Bada Bastu failed to get the votes and from early on the voting results pattern were hard to predict.
Many countries scored top 12 votes from the juries so as the competition headed into the final stretches, the televotes at home were clearly going to have a significant impact. Then, the result.
Austria won and a delighted JJ (real name Johnannes Pietsch) who is a classically trained counter tenor in Vienna told a packed media briefing after the show that it was a dream come true.
He is an Austrian-Filipino and he spoke in four languages to journalists expressing his delight at being the first filipino to take the prize.
His rise has been hugely supported in his family's home country. He said that "love is the strongest force we have in the world" to loud cheers and then he made a pitch on camera for himself and former winner and supporter Conchita who was Austria's previous winner in 2014.
The Austrian TV producer sat beside him at the press conference laughed and said that "we will have to start having discussions on many of these kinds of issues now.."
Rumours abound that the contest may be headed to the city of Linz in Upper Austria.
2. Ireland's drought
During the build up to the contest, EMMY spoke about the support she had enjoyed from the Irish fans, and on Friday morning she posted a heartfelt message on her social media writing: "I'm SO sorry ireland. We will forever love you and be grateful and honoured to represent you."
Watch: EMMY performs Laika Party during the second Eurovision semi-final on Thursday
Her result has reactivated questions over Ireland's selection process as last year's entry Bambie Thug was the first entry to make it through to the Eurovision final since 2018.
Michael Kealy, head of the RTÉ Delegation, said on Thursday night that it is a competition that is "getting harder and harder to do well in."
Pointing to the constraints in RTÉ compared to fellow broadcasters, he said that resources are an issue.
Eurovision super fan and analyst ESC Tom told RTÉ News that most countries have a dedicated Eurovision song contest series where the public gets really involved in the choice of the song.
He said it is needed here, and that this is a call Eurovision fans have been making for years.
What is clear is that despite Ireland's qualification difficulties, Eurovision fans are as enthusiastic about the competition as ever.
3. Israel's participation
Israel has been part of the Eurovision since 1973 when it became the first participant not to be geographically located in Europe.
This year's Israeli Eurovision entry New Day Will Rise was performed by 24-year-old Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the 7 October 2023 attack on the Nova music festival.
Israel's participation took place against the ongoing questions over their appearance in the contest.
The competition organised by the EBU, with 37 broadcasters taking part include RTÉ, Spain's RTVE and Slovenia's RTV who are asking for a debate on Israel's involvement in the festival.
The EBU's position has always been that it is an association of broadcasters, not governments, and as such Israel's Kan has a right to take part.
The most visible signs of protest at the contest were on the streets of Basel on Saturday evening, when a few hundred protesters marched carrying banners and chanting "free, free Palestine".
Later that night it was confirmed that a Eurovision Song Contest crew member was hit with paint after two people tried to rush on stage to disrupt Raphael's performance during the live show.
A Swiss TV broadcaster spokesperson said that "the man and woman were taken out of the venue and handed over to the police."
The police subsequently released the pair, and a statement from the Israeli delegation said that Ms Raphael had been badly shaken by the incident.
Where and when any discussions around Israel's participation will carry on after the contest is unclear.
4. The voting
Lots of fans were left scratching their heads last night as the multi-layered points system kicked in.
Eurovision voting is a combination of jury votes and public televotes from each participating country.
Each of the 37 participating countries gives two sets of points, comprising the jury vote (from a panel of music industry professionals) and the televote (from the public via phone, app, or SMS).
Each country jury awards points to their top 10 songs (excluding their own country) from 1point to the iconic douze points.
This system means each country gives a total of 116 points (58 from the jury and 58 from the televote, excluding their own country). The winner is the act with the highest combined total of jury and televote points wins.
Additionally, viewers from non-participating countries can cast their votes online called the 'rest of the world' vote.
These international votes are aggregated and counted as a single set of points, equivalent to the input of one participating country.
Therefore, the total number of voting entities in Eurovision 2025 was 38: the 37 participating countries plus the aggregated "Rest of the World" vote.
Last night Austria scored a total of 436 points with Israel in second place on 357 and Estonia third on 356. The jury results were announced first on camera.
Ireland's jury results as announced by Nicky Byrne confirmed that our national jury awarded Austria the top 12 points. The jury will be pleased to have vindication of their choice. Then the public votes were announced which changed the results board significantly.
Announced in the order of bottom to top, there was much head scratching in the media centre though when it came to those results.
The top three countries after the jury vote were Austria, Switzerland and France but the public vote yielded null points for a shocked Swiss fan base.
Israel which had been in the bottom half of the score board, bounced to the top with 297 points viewer votes out of a possible 444, and led the leaderboard for a period of time. Irelands vote gave 10 points to the Israeli entry.
It was a nail-biting finish with the final revelation that Austria had topped the competition with 436 points being awarded to his song Wasted Love.
As the dust settles in the coming weeks, expect to see much commentary on the voting systems.
5. 70 more years of Eurovision?
Next year sees Eurovision celebrating its 70th platinum anniversary, decades after the original contest took to the stage back in Switzerland in 1956.
It is an incredible achievement that a show with such a simple concept at its heart has endured.
Not only has it grown from the original line up of 7 countries, but it has developed an unshakeable fan base across the world.
There has only been one missed year in 2020 for Covid, and TV ratings tell the story, with a whopping 163 million viewers tuning in for last year's show.
With Austria starting the planning already today for the 70th Eurovision next year, is it possible that singers will still be fighting it out to be crowned Eurovision winner in 2095?
Someone tell Marty Whelan to keep the jokes coming!